CULTURAL WORKINGS

Welcome to THE CULTURAL WORKER, a blog dedicated to arts of the people ranging from the radical avant garde and free jazz to dissident folk forms and popular arts . The Cultural Worker celebrates revolutionary creativity and features a variety of essays, reviews, fiction, reportage, poetry and musings through the internet pen of this writer, musician and cultural organizer. Scroll straight down and you'll also find an extensive historical Photo Exhibit of cultural workers in action, followed by a series of Radical Arts Links. The features herein will be unabashedly partisan---make no mistake about that. The concept of the cultural worker as a force of fearless creativity, of social change, indeed as an artistic arm of radicalism, has always been left-wing when applied with any degree of honesty at all. No revolutionary act can be truly complete in the absence of art, no progressive campaign can retain its message sans the daring drumbeat of invention, no act of dissent can stand so strong as that which counts the writers, musicians, painters, dancers, actors, photographers, film and performance artists within its ranks. Here's to the history and legacy of cultural work in the throes of the good fight...john pietaro

Saturday, July 30, 2016

When celebrated drummer Frank Gant first moved into
his Lower East Side apartment, the community had been battered by decades of neglect.
These days, in the midst of arduous gentrification, the area stands among the
most sought-after in a city notorious for displacing its poor. And for an
octogenarian stricken with Huntington’s disease and embattled by his landlord,
downtown has become a bitterly cold place.

Gant was raised in Detroit, first exposed to the drums
in a school band where he quickly came to the attention of peers Barry Harris
and Hugh Lawson. “The band director told me I will never be able to play
professionally”, he said, with a restrained laugh. “But I practiced. I was
serious. Played in my basement every day and I took lessons.”

The drummer’s words were labored, but intent on being
heard. His voice, broken with coarse spastic utterances, channeled lasting
memories. “Barry, Hugh and I played together, but my first record date wasn’t
until 1954 with the Billy Mitchell Band. It was a 7-piece”, he stated. As he searched
his memory, Gant’s eyes became riveted, indicating an excitement stifled, perhaps
manacled, by illness. “Right after that, I recorded with Sonny Stitt”. This was
the event that put him into the category of top-flight sidemen. Among the gigs
that came along in the immediate period were several revered nights
accompanying Billie Holiday.

Frank served as house drummer at Club 12, a Detroit space
which hosted giants including Thelonious Monk. He quickly moved beyond local status
and began touring with a wide array of musicians. During one of these road trips
he crossed paths with Charlie Parker. “Bird was the man. That’s all there’s to
say”, Gant affirmed. “I asked him which drummer he liked best, Max Roach or Roy
Haynes”, he reminisced, citing Parker’s groundbreaking percussionists. “Bird
said it was Max”. Gant, too, viewed Roach as the master, the architect of
modern jazz drumming, while also honoring Haynes. “Be-Bop. That’s what I
played. I don’t care who I played with, but I played Be-Bop”, he added tersely.

Other decisive factors in Gant’s career included
several gigs with Miles Davis. “I met Miles in Detroit and played in his band
with Red Garland and Reggie Workman”. He also performed with Lester Young and came
to drive many ensembles at home or on tour. Recording dates with Harris were followed
by those with Donald Byrd, JJ Johnson and Yusuf Lateef, leading names of the
day as post-Bop cast new genres to a hungry listening public.

“And then in 1960 I came to New York to play a gig at
the Apollo--and stayed. Every club had music then. Uptown, downtown,
everywhere.” Gant rarely refused work as he was raising a young family. The
drummer picked up a regular spot in Harlem with organist Bobby Foster but also performed
in this period with Ernestine Anderson, George Coleman and Monty Alexander,
gigging quite regularly at the Village Vanguard, the Village Gate and countless
other spots. Concurrently, Gant joined Ahmad Jamal’s band, the leader he was
most closely associated with over the years.
Publicity photos of the day feature the dashing drummer behind a set of
glimmering Sonors, indicating the level of esteem he carried. As a member of
the Jamal band during a seminal period, he recorded albums such as “Heat Wave”
(1966), “Cry Young” (1967), among many others. The band was also captured in
concert to great effect on several other releases.

In the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s—and into the early 2000s, Gant’s
touring and recording schedule rarely if ever let up. In addition to the
full-time gig with Jamal, he played in bands led by Al Haig, and was called
back into service for major label record dates with Garland, Stitt, Anderson,
Lateef and Johnson. This steady pulse that bridged decades, however, only
wavered his course when his own hands came to betray him.

HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE WAS ONCE KNOWN AS HUNTINGTON’S CHOREA
due to the dysrhythmia which causes arms to flail, legs to wander. This is the
terrible irony for Gant. As he emoted during the NYC Jazz Record interview, he demonstrated the illness’s
manifestations, reaching repeatedly into the space in front, perhaps ongoing
perseveration, perhaps a means to ground himself. Beyond his chair was a small
drumkit, spare pieces, really. A mini bass drum, snare drum, mismatched tom-tom,
conga, and tabla stood beckoning. Gant ambled awkwardly over, his body
threatening to misdirect each step. But once seated behind his instrument,
spastic movements became swinging drumstick dances over cymbals and skins. His
eyes remained riveted, unmoved, but a certain burning essence fought to surface
from deep within.

Cards, letters or donations for Frank
Gant can be sent to him care of the Jazz Foundation

Iconic
bassist Steve Swallow has lived out his career thus far by rarely reflecting
back. His path has been one of storied turns continually leading to the next
stage. “I try not to pause and look backward”, he said. “Every now and then my
thoughts wander to the past, but I’m focused ahead.” In his pursuit to the
front line, however, Swallow made detailed investigations into the music’s
heritage, if only to ratify a foray into newer ground. His place on the cusp of
fusion and development of the electric bass within jazz have each left an
indelible mark on the past half-century, and then some.

Born in
1940 and raised in New Jersey suburbia, Swallow’s teen years were faced with
“an immense pressure to conform” socially and within familial expectations:
“These were the Eisenhower years”, he explained. “Institutions like home, camp,
school and church were concerned with producing a human product of a very
certain kind”. Within music he found a degree of escape from the ‘home, God and country’ ethic, but his immersion
into the sounds didn’t really germinate until commencing studies at Yale in
1959.

The
bassist cut his musical baby teeth lugging an upright around Boston, entrenched
in the traditional jazz scene then experiencing a wave of popularity among the
cognoscenti. He found himself in some heavy company, primarily legendary
clarinetist Pee Wee Russell. “Pee Wee was
a unique voice but remarkably adaptive---this is something I’ve always aspired
to. What came out of his horn was always
unexpected but very firmly grounded in solid theory and the jazz idiom”. Russell’s
repertoire, by the earliest ‘60s, expanded into the modern, braving adverse
responses from traditional jazz aficionados. He appeared at Newport with
Thelonious Monk and experimented with a pianoless quartet. That sense of
adventure in one so rooted in tradition stayed with the young bassist. Swallow
also worked with the woefully under-recognized drummer George Wettling. “George
caught me at a point in my evolution and taught me things only drummers can
know. He was a magnificent musician and an excellent painter who studied in
that discipline with Stuart Davis”, he attested.

As
enamored as Swallow was with some of the stars of the early style, he is wont
to focus on the music’s primary attribute. “Too often we look at the famous
soloists but early jazz is really an ensemble music. I immediately heard echoes
of this in the so-called free jazz idiom, so later it wasn’t strange for me to
abandon the expected role of the bassist and enter an ensemble approach. As you
get older you’re privileged to have an overview of the cycles. There have been
innovators who’ve carried the music into distinct paths, but on the other hand
nothing has changed. Louis Armstrong is as relevant today as he was in the 1920s.
This is the way of art”.

As a
living testament to this thesis, Swallow’s involvement in new realms began in
tandem to his Dixieland gigs. In 1960 he played a concert with the
forward-looking pianist-composer Paul Bley that was produced by the like-minded
Ran Blake. And then nothing was the same.

“Music must connect
to its time and place”

“I left school and presented myself at Paul
and Carla Bley’s doorstep in Manhattan, you know: ‘Your bass player is here’.
Paul saw possibilities in my playing that must’ve been quite subtle at the time.
I was a novice bassist and had no business going to New York then. Luckily Paul
took me seriously and spent day after day playing with me”.

While on the
cutting-edge, Swallow initially earned a living playing Dixieland in Greenwich
Village.

His
arrival in NYC occurred in a time when Village bohemianism could still be a
reality. Engrossed in rehearsals with Paul Bley, he spent nights gigging in the
traditional jazz venues and also playing avant works with Jimmy Giuffree and
George Russell. These conceptual composer-improvisers forced Swallow to rethink
the role of the bass. “I was 20 years old and working hard, but what an amazing
time. I had a loft on 6th Avenue near 24th Street for $40
a month”, the bassist remembered. “Every coffee house had live music and they paid
each musician $5 and all of the coffee you can drink. I was finally free of the
white middle class life I’d lived till that point”. In this fledgling period, the
bassist also listened to modern composers and contemporary popular music as
well: “I was introduced to Erik Satie’s music by Carla; he was in the air, a
presence in much of what we were doing. Carla was seldom performing then but
writing music every day, all day. I’d never seen a composer up close before and
she had a very strong influence on me. She also introduced me to the Supremes.
This was also a great shock, a revelation”.

True to
his stand against nostalgia for its own sake, Swallow laces his memories with
metaphor. In speaking of personal growth, he drew conclusions about wider
shifts in society. “Change is a process that involves destruction but also regeneration
and rebirth. This impulse repeats itself in each generation of artists. Those
coffee houses were supporting jazz musicians but in a very few years rock-n-roll
and folk music descended upon that street and wiped out the jazz gigs”.

In the jazz
universe the matter of radical change played itself out in a small club on the
Lower East Side, where a certain artist’s residency had the industry in a
tumult. “I practically lived at the 5-Spot when Ornette Coleman was there. His
sound was very warm and inviting, though more than other musicians Ornette was testing
boundaries. The infusion of folk sources were perceived as an assault, a
challenge to everything known and played, but in retrospect his was a gentle
music”.

Discussion
of Ornette inevitably led to Swallow’s memories of the other principal mover of
the era, John Coltrane. “At the 5-Spot one night Ornette and Coltrane sat at a
table together. There was an aura of common purpose that belied the controversy
going on around them. I’ll never forget it: a unified glow radiating from the
table. They were deep in discussion for a long time which the entire room was
aware of but dared not disturb”. Coleman’s and Coltrane’s reimagining of the
milieu had a dramatic effect on the young bassist, as did the advances of Eric
Dolphy, whom he played with in George Russell’s aggregation.

In the
mid-60s, after touring with Art Farmer, Swallow got the call to join Stan Getz’
band, then at the height of its popularity.
“The sound of Stan’s horn made me focus on how important the primacy of
sound is. Hearing his sound in a room, as opposed to on records, was earth
shattering”. The gig also paired him with the iconic drummer Roy Haynes for the
first time as well as vibraphonist Gary Burton.

In 1968,
Swallow departed Getz’ band to join Burton’s newly-formed combo, which included
Haynes and firebrand guitarist Larry Coryell. The band reached forward in scope
and became a feature in jazz festivals as well as major rock hubs where they
opened for the likes of Cream and the Electric Flag. “I found it fascinating
that jazz could move in circles so vastly different. I had been playing clubs
were people wore suits”, but this Quartet wore pop culture’s fringe jackets and
long hair, and offered arrangements of hits like Bob Dylan’s “I Want You”. The
latter featured Swallow’s bass on melody. Steve Swallow remains a close member
of the vibist’s circle.

In 1970, in
what became a life-altering moment, Steve stumbled upon the electric bass
guitar.Though he initially carried both
instruments to gigs, his focus landed solely on the electric. “The decision was
purely based on the physical essence of the instrument. I picked it up and fell
in love with it: the length of the finger board, the feel of it, the presence
of the frets. I didn’t want to sound like James Jamerson or Duck Dunn, I still
wanted to be Percy Heath but I just wasn’t able to put the electric down. I thought
‘Oh shit!’, and was faced with having to explain using this instrument to others
when it had been seen as anathema to the jazz community”. Truly secured in his
ax, Swallow began touring and recording with a wide array of artists in the
decades to follow including Pat Methaney, Paul Motian, Joe Lovano and Michael
Mantler, and also began leading ensembles of his own. And while teaching at the
Berklee College of Music he began a lasting relationship with John Scofield
which bore fruit in the ‘80s and continues on. The pair recently recorded an album
of C&W music, Country for Old Men.

Likewise,
Swallow can trace back his annual August performance with Steve Kuhn and Joey
Barron. “Our reunion is really just old friends shooting the breeze”, he
remarked. And this month he’ll also be performing with a new quartet, Monk
Revisited. The band, playing reconstructions of Thelonious Monk works, is an
experiment for all involved. “I’m curious to see how it turns out”, he said,
smiling. And while Swallow claims to struggle through each piece he composes
(“I’m glacial”), his writing too has grown with the years. He is now plotting a
new quintet album for ECM.

Surely the
most visceral of Swallow’s collaborations is that with Carla Bley, the
bassist’s life-partner of many years. “There’s something that happens when you
spend 56 years in someone’s music. This is something you have to wait a
lifetime to experience. The wonders of it and of living with her are equally
astonishing. Carla gets up every morning and asks herself, ‘what if?’”. Bley has
often used the stage as a platform of protest against right-wing oppression. Of
this Swallow commented with pride: “We both feel compelled to address what’s
going on in this nation, this election cycle. Carla’s immediate response has
been ‘National Anthem’, a drastic reworking of ‘the Star Spangled Banner’. It’s
now been added to our performance repertoire”.

Friday, July 29, 2016

NYC JAZZ RECORD, August 2016

CYRO
BAPTISTA: Forging the Alliance of Sound

By John Pietaro

Percussionist Cyro Baptista has lived in the US for
well over thirty years since relocating from his native Brazil. The trail has
taken him around the globe many times, sharing the stage and studio with many
of the most relevant artists of free improvisation, world music, jazz,
experimental composition, and some of the best of pop music too. Perhaps it is
due to his status as a traveler, but Baptista has never stopped seeking out the
community within the music—in any locale it takes him to.

Baptista was introduced to music performance in
elementary school where the local music teacher engaged the children in the
building of percussion instruments as well as in playing them. “My first
instrument was a hollowed out coconut shell”, he recalled fondly, “and when I brought
it the ensemble, this simple thing became something great we could do
together”.

His immersion in the Brazilian music tradition
introduced the percussionist to many instruments as he crafted his own expression
and developed that sense of ensemble which remains so meaningful to him. Baptista
traveled to New York in 1980; though he was soon to become a downtown stalwart, his initial
destination was considerably further north. “I was given a full scholarship to
attend the Creative Music Studio up in Woodstock. It was an incredible time to
be there”, he explained, still reflecting on his work with Karl Berger and
Ingred Sertso with a sense of wonder. “The best musicians in the world came
through that program; Don Cherry was a regular! Every day, a new experience.”

After considerable immersion in CMS’ unique approach
to improvisation and performance, Baptista decided to move into the City and into
the burgeoning new music scene. “I lived on the Lower East Side to be near the
music---and it was so cheap then! It wasn’t long before I became friends with
John Zorn and Marc Ribot. They were great to me. I played a lot on the streets,
trying to get to know people, but I hardly knew any English. I picked up a lot
of, um, bad words immediately---but I didn’t know what they meant”, he said
laughing. “It took me a while to realize I couldn’t use ‘M.F.’ in every
sentence, but it was brought to my attention at a big artsy party on the Upper
East Side. That was an eye-opener. My English is still not so great”, he
injected with a smile, “Sometimes I think I speak like Tarzan. But back then,
it was really rough!”

Cyro began playing gigs at now rather legendary performance
spaces in the fertile terrain of downtown, 1980, where experimental composition
and free improv tangled deliciously with punk rock and electronica. He found
the mélange to be a refreshing change. “Once I became a part of the musical
scene down there, a big door opened for me”.

His instrumental voice liberated, Baptista was among a
growing brood that soon became known as the avant apex of the day. “We used to
play these gigs at the old Knitting Factory on Houston Street, but none of us
were well known yet. The audience didn’t come at first--it could be a really
tough neighborhood--but after a while, the word spread. John Zorn worked very
hard to make it happen and we played together a lot. All of us struggled so
much early on but we created that community of sound. People stood together.”

The list of pertinent composers and songwriters, improvisers
and many other performers that Baptista encountered in the years since can fill
volumes. His work with Zorn is well chronicled but Cyro also spent considerable
time with the late percussion master Nana Vasconcelos, whom he considers his
“inspiration”. Walking in such good company opened Baptista up to performance opportunities
ranging from gigs with founding ‘no wave’ guitarist Arto Lindsay to globally
renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma. Along the way, he performed and/or recorded with Sting,
David Byrne, Dr. John, Phoebe Snow, Janis Ian, Gato Barbieri, Geri Allen, Trey
Anastasio, the Chieftans, James Carter, Edie Brikell, Bobby McFerrin, Cassandra
Wilson, Richard Stoltzman, Herbie Mann, Tony Bennet and the list goes on. Cyro
enjoys every facet of his role as a percussionist, whether playing the
traditional berimbau, hand drums, tearing up racks of blocks, bells and
cymbals, or playing what he calls “transparent percussion”, the subtle touches
that lie almost inaudibly on a track. His has been a rather storied career.

When Derek Baily, the master improviser and theorist, approached
Baptista early on for a recording date, the percussionist jumped at the chance
to make his debut recording. “Derek asked me to record with him and so I went
and we just played. I never thought anything more of it and assumed it hadn’t
been released. Some years later, I was touring in the UK with Nana, and a man
came up to me excitedly saying, ‘You’re Cyro!’ and waving this album at me. It
was Derek’s record. I was shocked to see that not only had it come out, but
Derek had named it Cyro. This was
very moving. Soon after we engaged in a pub tour”, he recalled.

But it hasn’t all been freewheeling music. Baptista explained:
“I toured and recorded with Paul Simon for six years. He was a very particular
kind of songwriter—he allowed the musicians room to create but then was strict
about parts being played the same way every time. The band was amazing: Steve
Gadd, Richard Tee, Michael Brecker…wow. I had been used to clubs, halls, but
with Paul I learned how to play to 30,000 people! We did the Concert in Central Park, played around the world in stadiums”

And what of Herbie Hancock? “He’s Number One. I
actually rate my career on what I did before I met him, and after. After
Herbie, I was never just a side-man again. The connection we had went beyond
music—I became a Buddhist through his example. Musically, everything was so
open, the expectations for the band to CREATE every moment was so high. He
approached me once, saying he was very happy with what I played but he noticed
some of the same phrases night after night. He said I needed to play something
new each time”, Baptista laughed. “So I went from a leader that always wanted
everything the same to one that never wanted you to repeat yourself.”

The percussionist has been an active composer for
years and founded several ensembles which feature aspects of his musical
breadth. But he works to build the sense of ensemble in each situation. “Every
time I play it’s a different set-up. I’m always experimenting with sounds. For
certain gigs, I will learn to play a new instrument. These days I’m killing
myself to learn the balafon, spending five hours a day practicing. It’s like
starting over, but we should never stop growing”.

Here is where tradition can take wing: “Once you learn
the roots of your instrument then you can go anywhere. When I moved to the US I
learned the washboard, an American musical manifestation. And when I formed the
band Beat the Donkey I knew I needed to include a tap dancer for the same
reason”, he offered. “But you must first conquer the roots; that’s where you’ll
find the instrument’s genetic code”.

Beat the Donkey (the translation of a Brazilian
expression for “Let’s go!”), a true fusion of culture and genre, has been a
main Baptista vehicle these past 15 years. He boldly added adaptations of King
Crimson and Led Zeppelin into an already expansive repertoire, at times to the
chagrin of concert hall administrators. Still,
his work isn’t limited to this band. A case in point is Baptista’s newly
released disc Bluefly (Tzadik label),
inspired by the title insect’s ability to travel mass distances on the back of
a large animal, another metaphor for the leader’s journey. It features a pair
of musicians from Sting’s band and a bevy of guest artists. And then there’s
the percussionists featured spot on Jamie Saft’s new album Sunshine Seas (Rare Noise).

However, this month the focus is on Banquet of the
Spirits, yet another band under his leadership. Several members of the
assemblage (pianist Brian Marsella, Shanir Blumenkranz on bass, sinter and oud,
and drummer Gil Oliveira) will perform along with special guests in a Jazz at
Lincoln Center concert this month. The event is Baptista’s tribute to Heitor
Villa-Lobos, Brazil’s greatest composer, and an extension on a project began a
generation ago, ‘Vira-Loucos Villa-Lobos’. He ranks this upcoming concert as
one of the highlights of his work, a chance to both celebrate and reconstruct
this master’s music.

In many ways, this brings it all back home for Baptista,
as does the goal of inspiring coming generations. “In addition to writing
music, Villa-Lobos ran a program for school children to perform his choral works
all over Brazil. Every year they’d pull these choirs together for a concert in
a soccer stadium”. In this regard, Baptista has been facilitating a project
with drummer Kenny Wollesen, “The Sound of Community”, which brings music
programs to economically deprived areas. “We’ve done this in Mexico so far, but
plan to extend it further. We create instruments with old people, children,
workers—and then together all of us create compositions for these instruments.
In the end, we hold a concert with them. The program allows even the poorest
people to see the possibilities”.

“Music is music, but we keep changing”, the
percussionist relayed. “In the end we can bring it back to what it was in the beginning,
when people sat around a fire for survival, sharing songs”.

As a Bernie Sanders supporter who campaigned and
stumped for the man during the primary, I find myself taking a strong, sober
view of the campaign season. I am more alert than ever of the dangers of
demagoguery and the importance of fighting against the Trump vision of our future.

It took a Bernie Sanders--and the millions he
activated--to wake Hillary Clinton up and push her out of the usual bland Dem
middle of the road. The platform of the Democratic Party is a deeply
progressive one. Finally. And perhaps the gains of FDR's New Deal will become
central to a candidacy for the first time since Roosevelt. There is a sense
that a vote for Hillary will not simply be a lesser of evils. We have yet to
see if this will be so, but in the wake of a powerful convention with strong
almost continuous progressive messaging, there is great promise. So the battle
is officially at the core of our 2-party system.

As a Marxist, as a cultural worker, an outspoken
activist, and a member of the labor movement, I can only truly see the need to
end the Trump campaign of hate/fear manipulation. Whereas Clinton is drawing on
the Dem heritage of FDR and JFK, Trump is thriving on the Republican heritage
of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and arch-Right philosophy. That philosophy
was realized during lynchings, Red scares, institutional bias and the so-called
Moral Majority and the drive to outlaw abortion. George Wallace, J Edgar
Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, Father Coughlin, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, David Duke, Edwin
Meese, Strom Thurmond, Roy H Cohn, the segregationists, the fear-mongers, the
neo-Nazis, the censors, the greedy, the war profiteers, have been at the heart
of the Right-Wing all along, emerging at points of financial and international
tumult. And at present, under Trump, we are being fed all of the ingredients of
fascism, make no mistake of that. An angry, chest thumping man of great wealth
railing on about who our enemies are and how only he can save us. The fomenter
of fear and suspicion. The figure of division who claims to unite. The would-be
statesman that denounces the nation in order to frighten us into having him
"fix" it. The alpha male who stifles and threatens those who dare
oppose him, most openly the media. The silver spoon man of wealth who somehow
convinces the working class that he is of them. These have all been successful
means toward power grabs around the world and most prominently in Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy---and the periods that led up to them.

No, we cannot take this election lightly. No, we
cannot allow this demagogue who would prey on fears for personal gain to have a
glimmer of hope here. No, we cannot turn our back on our Left values by letting
the childish, ignorant, hateful, manipulative Short Fingered Vulgarian believe
he can or should have a position of power on our watch.

About Me

John Pietaro, writer/musician/cultural organizer; Staff Writer, The NYC Jazz Record. Contributing Writer: Z Magazine, the Nation, CounterPunch, the Wire, many others. His latest book, ON THE CREATIVE FRONT: ESSAYS ON THE CULTURE OF LIBERATION, is under review for publication. Pietaro also wrote a chapter for the Harvey Pekar/Paul Buhle book SDS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY (2007 Hill &Wang). In 2013 he self-published a volume of contemporary proletarian fiction, NIGHT PEOPLE. Current projects: co-writing/editing the autobiography of Amina Baraka; authoring a novel. Founded NEW MASSES MEDIA in 2013, production/ publicity company. As a musician Pietaro performs on the NYC free jazz/new music circuit on hand drums, drumkit, vibraphone, percussion, voice. Over the years he has created music with Amina Baraka, Alan Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Karl Berger, Fred Ho, Ras Moshe, many more. Leader: the Red Microphone. Founder/producer, annual Dissident Arts Festival. Pietaro has spoken on arts activism at Left Forum, the Vision Festival and other venues. He is a member of the Author's Guild, PEN America, National Writers Union UAW 1981 and Jazz Journalists Association

NIGHT PEOPLE and Other Tales of Working NY

'THE RED MICROPHONE SPEAKS!' CD, 2013

"Revenge of the Atom Spies" (2007)

The Flames of Discontent: Laurie Towers & John Pietaro ..................SCROLL DOWN FOR an extensive 'PHOTO EXHIBIT' of cultural workers in history and a thorough list of 'RADICAL LINKS' !

'Little Red Song Book'

still fanning the flames

John Reed and Boardman Robinson, 1913

The revolutionary writer and political cartoonist in Europe

Edward Hopper

"Night on the El Train", 1918

Anti-War Dance

Anti-War Dance - WW1

Louis Fraina

Writer and early Communist movement leader was later purged from the CP in a haze of controversy. Currently all traces of him remain disappeared from official Party documents

William Gropper: "Revolutionary Age", July 1919

Organ of the Left-Wing of the SPUSA (roots of the CPUSA), edited by Louis Fraina

The Funeral of JOHN REED

1920--at the Kremlin Wall

'Metropolis'

Fritz Lang's powerful depiction of a futuristic society ruled by a lazy bourgeois totally dependent on the laboring of the workers in the depths of the city

'New Masses', 1928

Amazingly hip artwork by Louis Lozowick

Brecht in Leathers

Somehow encompasses all that was 30s Berlin and 70s New York all at the same time

The chilling art of Fred Ellis

from "The Daily Worker", 1931

Debs, with Max Eastman and Rose Pastor Stokes

The patron saint of the Socialist Party working closely with Communist Party cultural leaders--the arts can climb above the fray

'The Red Songbook'

compiled by members of the Composers Collective of NY, a CPUSA cultural organization

Langston Hughes

Eisler and Brecht

Composer Hanns Eisler and poet Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary artists

'Song of the United Front''

music by Hanns Eisler, lyric by Bertolt Brecht

Sid Hoff, 'The Daily Worker', 1930s

"Thank God he doesn't have to swim with the dirty masses in Coney Island"

Paul Robeson

performing for British strikers, 1930s

Stuart Davis

at work

'The Anvil'

Organ of the John Reed Club, 1934

The Rebel Song Book, 1935

Socialist Party cultural publication compiled by SP poet and journalist Samuel H. Friedman. In these fervant years Friedman almost singlehandedly led the Socialist arts program which included much live perforamnce, literature, lectures, gallery exhibits and even the radio station WEVD, named for Debs, which broadcast radio dramas, music and speeches.

The League of American Writers

1936 statement on the urgency of the Spanish Civil War by this powerfully united group of Left and liberal writers, coalesced through a CP initiaitive. The League was an an outgrowth of the American Writers Congress. As strong as this grouping was, its creation also sounded the death toll for the more radical John Reed Club, which was dissolved by Party leaders this same year.

'Waiting for Lefty', 1935

The Group Theatre's debut production of Odets immortal agit-prop play. Yes, that's a young Elia Kazan out in front shouting 'Strike! Strike!" decades before the crisis of conscience and career which saw him naming names in his second HUAC hearing. But wasn't this a time?

'Proletarin Literature in the United States'

1935, the first serious collection, edited by Granville Hicks and featuring the work of Mike Gold, Isidor Schneider, Joseph North, and other noted writers of the day

Artists Union

American Artists Congress, 1936

depicted by Stuart Davis

The Benny Goodman Quartet, 1937

Goodman's combo was revolutionary in that it was fully integrated in a time of terrible racism--further the Quartet laid down the ground work for all chamber jazz to come. The blurring solos of Lionel Hampton's vibraphone brought that instrument into the forefront as a major voice in jazz; Gene Krupa's drumming in this period also created a major role for percussionists in all aspects of this genre. Not to forget Teddy Wilson's brilliant piano playing and the clarinet of the leader!

Partisan Review editors, 1938

Phillip Rahv and Dwight McDonald and co.

'Native Son'

Richard Wright's groundbreaking novel, 1940

Disney Cartoonists Strike!

1941--the very radical cartoonists' union takes the studio by storm

Josh White, Leadbelly and friends

1940, NYC, BBC radio airshot

Leadbelly

"Bougeois Blues"

Carl Sandburg

He covered the march of Coxey's Army, became an early Socialist Party cultural worker and was still a beloved, celebrated elder of American folk culture!

John Howard Lawson, HUAC Hearing

speaking back to power

Hollywood on trial

The Ten included Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter John Howard Lawson, screenwriter Edward Dmytryk, director Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter Lester Cole, screenwriter Albert Maltz, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter Alvah Bessie, screenwriter Also the great Charlie Chaplin left the U.S to fink work because he was blacklisted. Only 10% of the artists succeeded in rebuilding their careers.

Dalton Trumbo

HUAC hearing

Arthur Miller

HUAC vs the playwright

Paul Robeson, 1949

immediately after the Peekskill Riot

Ralph Ellison

'Invisible Man'

The Weavers

Lillian Hellman

Wonderfully atmospheric shot of the brilliant playwright who stared down HUAC

'Masses and Mainstream'

1953

'High Noon', 1952

Gary Cooper stars in the film by blacklisted writer Carl Foreman, a perfect allegory for the isolative stand of those who opposed HUAC and McCarthy

'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg

The militantly revolutionary Gay poet's groundbreaking work, 1956

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

the couple modeled the concept of the artist/activist with their brilliant acting abilities and consistent place on the front lines of the struggles for civil rights and labor unions

Beat Poets

In this 1959 photograph taken in New York City, composer/musician David Amram (top right) is seen with some of the artists, poets and writers who would become the leaders of "The Beat Generation." They include (clockwise from Amram): poet Allen Ginsburg, writer Gregory Corso (back to camera), artist Larry Rivers and author Jack Kerouac. Photo: John Cohen, Courtesy of david amram

En Route to Chicago, '68

Jean Genet, William Burrough, Alan Ginsberg--noted poet-activists who were also loud and proud Gay liberationists

'What's Going On?'

Marvin Gaye

The Last Poets

1968: the interplay of free verse poetry, improvisation and the politicis of race and revolution

'Ohio', 1970

CSNY's song offered chilling, driving commentary on the shootings at Kent State University

War Is Over!(if you want it)

A Christmas message from John and Yoko, Times Square, NYC, 1970

Bob Marley

"Get Up, Stand Up"

Samuel Friedman

The Socialist Party's cultural leader seen here in a 1977 pic with his wife. Friedman was a journalist and activist who, after the dissolution of the SP's arts efforts, became one of the Party's candidates for often on multiple occasion (photo by Steve Rossignol).

Peter Tosh

'Talking Revolution'

Rock Against Racism

here's the album collection which chronicled the 1976 and '78 British concerts established to fight the rising trend of neo-fascist skinhead gangs in the UK

Robert Mapplethorpe

This gifted, militantly Gay photogrpaher set off a firestorm of controversy in opposition to the neo-cons of the Reagan administration and the Edwin Meese "decency" doctrine.

Patti Smith

brazenly outspoken punk poet and activist, late 1970s

'Reds' 1982

Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as John Reed and Louise Bryant, en route to Petrograd

ROCK AGAINST REAGAN

The Dead Kennedys headed up the bill for this protest concert, Washington DC, 1983

Nuyorican Poets Cafe

'Bedtime for Democracy'

Public Enemy

Karen Finley

The sexually provacative feminist performance artist did constant battle with the neo-cons of the 1980s and '90s and became a poster child for right-wing calls to suspend funding to the NEA

'Mumia 911'

This series of arts-actions occured in multiple spaces throughout NYC and other cities in an attempt to raise both funds and awareness for the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, journalist and Black Panther who was framed on a police murder charge in the lates '70s and continues to sit in death row now. For this event, NY's Brecht Forum hosted an all-day marathon on September 11, 1999, the house band of which was led by John Pietaro.

Pete Seeger, Music in the History of Struggle, 1999

with the Ray Korona Band, John Pietaro on percussion. 1199SEIU auditorium, NYC

Ani DiFranco

Fred Ho

The revolutionary saxophonist/composer has successfully forged an avant garde music which bridges improvisation and New Music composition w/ Marxism, Maoism and traditional Chinese folk art.

'Not in Our Name'

Charlie Haden reunites his revolutionary ensemble one more time to speak out against the Bush administration's manipulations of the populace, 2005.

The Brecht Forum

The Brecht Forum/NYC Marxist School came to be a fixture of Left education and culture in the early 1970s lasting through 2014.

New Masses Nights

Joe Hill

The Industrial Workers Band

Arturo Giovannitti, around 1912

brilliant IWW poet/organizer who composed epic pieces about his imprisonment and the struggle for a more equitable society

Ralph Chaplin

IWW songwriter and journalist who penned "Solidarity Forever" in 1911

John Reed at his desk

note the Provincetown Playhouse poster!

Robert Minor, 'The Masses'

July 1916

Louise Bryant

Crusading journalist seen here approx 1918

Max Eastman

writer, activist, editor of 'The Masses'

Isadora Duncan

Modern Dance in revolution

Robert Minor

The radical artist and leading CPUSA functionary

Michael Gold

Cultural conscience of 'the Daily Worker', 'New Masses' and acclaimed proletarian novelist seen here addresseing a May Day crowd on the streets of Manhattan, early 1930s.

"Costume Ball--Where All Toilers Meet!"

The Daily Worker, January 14, 1928

VJ Jerome

Communist Party cultural commissar

NYC, 1931: A delegation of the John Reed Club following a trip to Harlan County, VA

John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, Sam Ornitz

'The Crisis'

1933, radical magazine of Black American militancy

Marc Blitzstein

member of the Composers Collective of New York

'Negro Songs of Protest'

Compiled by Lawrence Gellert, illustrations by his brother the great Communist artist Hugo Gellert. The songs were arranged by Ellie Siegmeister of the Composers Collective of NY

'The Workers Song book, Workers Music League, 1934

compiled by the Composers Collective of New York

American Artists' Congress

Signed by AAC Secretary STUART DAVIS

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

"Class Struggle"

Diego Rivera's amazing work told the story of the workers' fight against capitalist exploitation --and was created as a commision for Rockefeller Center's main hall. It was not long before John D had the piece destroyed.

'Processional', 1937

modernist drama by John Howard Lawson, a leader of CPUSA cultural activists

The Almanac Singers, 1941

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS

Woody

Silent speak-back to HUAC

George Orwell

the British writer maintained his democratic socialist views through his great novels

Earl Robinson, ca 1940s

member of the Composers Collective of New York, leader of the American People's Chorus and a musician of the people throughout his career. Among his compositions was "Joe Hill", "The House I Live in", "Ballad for Americans" and "Black and White"

Hanns Eisler, HUAC hearing, 1947

Trumbo and Lawson

Paul Robeson at Peekskill

Flanked by unionist and Communist guards, staring down the fascist mobs at Peekskill NY, 1949

Sinclair Lewis

'It Can't Happen Here'

Dashiell Hammet

closing out the HUAC onslaught

'Salt of the Earth'

Paul Robeson shouts down HUAC

"You are the Un-Americans--and you should be ashamed of yourselves!"

W.E.B. DuBois

Stockholm Peace Conference, 1955

'Rebel Poets of America', 1957 LP

Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Amiri Baraka

"We Insist!--Freedom Now Suite"

Max Roach with Abbey Lincoln

Lorraine Hansberry

Peter, Paul and Mary

1963 March on Washington

'Spartacus', 1964

The tale of a unified slave revolt was first written by Howard Fast in novel form and then realized for the screen by Dalton Trumbo

Bill Dixon's OCTOBER REVOLUTION IN JAZZ, 1964

John Coltrane

Seen here performing his powerful piece, "Alabama" on German television, 1965. The story of the church bombing which killed four African American girls and injured others was retold in this mournful work.

The Fugs

Radical Greenwich Village poets turn rock-n-rollers of a whole other sort, 1965

Freedom Marching

James Baldwin, Joan Baez, and James Forman (left to right) enter Montgomery, Alabama on the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights, 1965.

You Can't Jail the Revolution

Shades of Chicago, '68

Sam Rivers

The great jazz musician who helped to found the avant garde loft scene in the 1960s was devoutly outspoken with regard to radical politics and the incorporation of same into his music. He is seen here performing at his own NYC space, Studio Rivbea. From the look of that tom-tom to the left, the drummer is Milford Graves who not only broke new ground into improvisational music but its part in Black liberation and other revolutionary struggles.

Henry Cow, late '60s

British avant rock band also engaged in social statements and celebrated the music of Brecht & Eisler

Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra

1969: Bassist extraordinaire Haden (right) unites with pianist-arranger Carla Bley (left), trumpeter Don Cherry (kneeling) and a wealth of others to create a radical album of anti-war music. Included in the collection was a powerful reconfiguring of Brecht and Eisler's Song of the United Front

Gil Scott Heron

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

MC 5

Kicking out the jam as well as the walls of conformity

Rally for John Sinclair

this fund- and awareness-raising event was in honor of the noted anti-war activist who'd been arrested on trumped-up drug charges. It featured John and Yoko, Alan Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Archie Shepp, Commander Cody and a host of others

Art Ensemble of Chicago

Revolutionary composition/improvisation: "a great Black music"

Victor Jara

The great Chilean revolutionary songwriter

TILLIE OLSEN w/MAYA ANGELOU

Writers March Against Apartheid, 1970s

Frederic Rzewski

In 1975 the composer created "THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED", inspired by the struggles of farm workers and militants around the globe

Richard Hell

Nihilistic poet of punk performing with the Voidoids at CBGB

ABC No Rio

activist performance space, NY's Lower East Side

'London Calling'

The Clash

Fela Kuti

Revolution in song from Nigeria

'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg', 1985

The Ramones satiric commentary on Reagan's visit to the Nazi soldiers cemetary

'Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing'

Artist Space, NYC, 1989: reactionaries tried at all costs to shut down this boldly outspoken exhibit on AIDS

Day Without Art

Visual AIDS and other arts activist organizations created a Day Without Art to commemorate World AIDS Day

Tupac Shakur

Militant Hip Hop 101

'Somebody Blew Up America'

Amiri Baraka, fearlessly taking on the controversial causes of the 9/11 attacks

Robeson

After falling victim to a nation which tried to disappear him, Paul Robeson is honored with his own stamp

The first Dissident Fest: The Dissident Folk Festival 2006

This event featured Malachy McCourt, Pete Seeger, Bev Grant, Lack and a bevy of radical jazz musicians, poets and more